MASS EVENT
T-minus 23 days and counting to the 150!Canada Conference.

Come make history at the National Arts Centre, March 11-12, 2010

Join Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on Citizenship and Celebration, Danny Graham on Citizenship Leadership, Roch Carrier on our Past and Likely Future, Jeanette Hanna on Symbolizing the State, and Sujit Choudhry on Demographics and Democracy. Two dozen leading thinkers from across Canada will take the stage for this amazing two-day event to begin imagining and planning Canada's Sesquicentennial in 2017.

In the evening, the 6717 Arts Celebration will rock the National Arts Centre's Theatre Hall with a Canadian music mash-up featuring Juno Award winning singer Jully Black, DJ Rise Ashen, Radio Radio, classical pianist David Virelles and Sampradaya Dance Creations. 

The 150!Canada Conference is a fill-your-brain, roll-up-your-sleeves and work-with-dozens-and-dozens-of-inspiring-people kind of event. We need you to be a part of it. Join us in Ottawa at the National Arts Centre on March 11-12 and help to make 2017 Canada's Next Great Year.

Why is 150!Canada important and what inspired MASS LBP and IPAC to take on such as large project? Take a look at Peter MacLeod's TEDxTO presentation on the Centennial and the future Sesquicentennial. We featured this a few bulletins ago, but thought it was a good time to bring it back and get you thinking about the conference on March 11-12. Get your organization, office or school to sponsor a delegation to come out. We want to see you in Ottawa.

Have you booked your tickets yet?

 

MASS TALK
On February 8, our friend Jowi Taylor presented MASS Talk 8, inducting his audience into the Six String Nation and showing off Canada's newest national treasure, the Voyageur guitar. 

 
MASS READ
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

Get a copy of the Spirit Level. We've tried to read it three times but every time we do, we wind up giving away our copy before we get past chapter four. Could be that we're slow readers, but it's more likely that you'll find yourself wanting to share this important new book too. Wilkinson and Pickett look at the income gap that is widening in virtually all liberal democracies. Bigger the gap, bigger the ills: from drug use to depression to drop out rates all of which on their own are either costly or nearly impossible to correct. The Spirit Level provides the evidence for why we should work to close this gap. But with new redistributive tax policies politically disabled, it's unclear how societies can shift their capital flows to narrow the gap improving lives, and it turns out, saving themselves a wodge of cash.

MASS SHORTS
We bang on a lot about the importance of visualization technologies for making policy options intelligible. This compilation of US stimulus funding is a compelling example of just how powerful well-designed visual guides can be.

It's happening in the Hammer. Hamilton, Ontario has announced a special citizen's jury to tackle the perennial thorn of municipal property taxes. With our recent Citizen Reference Panels on Health Strategy, and two others on health budgeting in hospitals, we're excited to see the province making new trends in deliberative democracy increasingly mainstream.

"Our beds," said geodesic guru Buckminster Fuller, "are empty two-thirds of the time. Our living rooms are empty seven-eighths of the time. Our office buildings are empty one-half of the time.
 It's time we gave this some thought. "  Recently, the NYT's Allison Arieff did just that. From greening our cities to densifying our suburbs, Arieff makes the case for why 'space' is the most fertile ground for new policy research. 

But can you design an economy? Alberta could be the test case. Their resource dependent economy has a long history of booms and busts and there's growing consensus that the time has come for an overhaul.

British commuters don't need iPads. Instead they've got a low-tech solution to the transit blues: The Book Swap in the UK provides commuters with a lending library for the ride home. 

The customer is wrong. The revolution of 1789 has burned the notion of equality deep into the French psyche. I am not your slave. But, does this more open and equal relationship allow for better service through pride and ownership instead of expectation? The BBC investigates.

Want to Participate? Based on a wiki platform, Participedia offers a rich trove of user-generated articles that describe and assess participatory governance models used throughout the world. 

No Mayor. Like this. The UNDP's Users Guide to Measuring Local Governance offers useful ideas for benchmarking performance in municipal governance.

Experiments in Political Socialization, or better known as 'How to teach teenagers to vote on a regular basis later in life.'

MASS SHORT-SHORTS
LEGO Beats Rubik's Cube in Under 12 Seconds

Tracking Diesel Purchases

The Five-Cent Architect

Lessig Strikes Again: Change Congress

How will the iPad change magazine design?

Rejuvenate Your Symphonies or ELSE

Guardian Zeitgeist

Helvetica + Cookie = YES!

Name Your Neighbourhood

Wiki Power Struggle

NetArt Since 1996

Quantify Yourself

American Ruins

Visualizing Economics